There appears to be new buzz around the sport of table tennis.

Dave Stockdale, president of Table Tennis Yukon, said this week he wants to capture what he sees as a resurgence in enthusiasm, and perhaps even send a team to the upcoming junior national championships for the first time in several years.

“Things just seem to be exploding a little bit,” Stockdale said in an interview Tuesday.

He credits some of the renewed energy to a couple of individuals in particular.

Vice-principal Jim Snider of the Elijah Smith Elementary School has started a table tennis movement among his students, Stockdale pointed out.

He said Dawsonite Irwin Gaw has generated local interest in the sport that shone through at the Arctic Winter Games this past March in Nuuk, Greenland. Kate Parsons Crocker and Emily Gaw of Dawson City teamed up with Arcel John Siosan and Zach Zimmermann of Whitehorse to take home bronze in the mixed juvenile event at Nuuk.

The town of Keno City has also embraced the sport thanks to local organizer Scott Buchanan and the community club, Stockdale noted.

The sport president said the Table Tennis Yukon membership would normally number somewhere around 50 to 60 but its up noticeably because of Buchanan’s efforts – 33 new members.

“I think he signed up everybody in town,” Stockdale said, explaining the communities request for a new table from the organization.

In any case, there is a new table tennis energy he hasn’t seen for a while, and he wants to foster it.

Table Tennis Yukon has seven new tables on order, and one of them will be going to Keno City, he said.

Stockdale said the Yukon Championships are taking place May 14 and 15 at Whitehorse Elementary School.

He said they’ll be hosting a separate event Saturday morning for high school and elementary students prior to the junior championships getting underway in the afternoon, in hopes of generating more interest is a school competition. Four schools participated last year.

The open championships will be held on Sunday.

Table Tennis Yukon is planning to send players to represent the Yukon in Anchorage for the annual Yukon-Alaska Challenge, an event that rotates between Whitehorse, Anchorage and Fairbanks.

The Challenge, Stockdale explained, is an event were players are given handicaps to even the odds between seasoned and not so seasoned players.

And a week after that there’ll be a coaching clinic.

“Our objective in all this activity is to send a boy’s and girl’s team to the Canadian Junior Championships being held in Winnipeg on July 4-6th,” said Stockdale.

“We have not participated in this tournament for several years, but with the growth in membership, and particularly with the performance of the Dawson athletes at the 2016 AWG’s, I am optimistic we will have teams in the tournament.”